ICONS AND VILLAINS: Recent Political Assassinations That Transformed Countries, Regions, and the World

Countries, continents, and the world at large experience jolts that move them away from their evolutionary if not reformatory paths, resulting in seismic changes that transform them fundamentally. Assassinations are one of the potent catalysts for these changes as they lead to wars, political changes, and even economic transformations. Below is an insight into far-reaching political assassinations that are still haunting the world today:Franz Ferdinand: Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian-Serb nationalist kills the Archduke and heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, thereby sparking off World War One.John F. Kennedy: The legendary American president who steers the United States of America away from nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union, saving humanity in the process, dies, supposedly, from the bullets of the Marxist enthusiast Lee Harvey Oswald.Patrice Lumumba: The liquidation of the first democratically elected leader of the infant nation of Congo (the former Belgian Congo), plunges the country into a chaos that claims more than ten million lives, derails it, and sets it on a trajectory that it is yet to recover from six decades after Lumumba’s death.Mahatma Gandhi: The preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement leads India to its independence from British rule but falls from an assassin’s bullet as he tries to heal the country following the partition of the subcontinent. However, he wins recognition as the father of nonviolent civil disobedience, and his legacy has been inspiring movements for civil rights and freedom across the world ever since.Abraham Lincoln: The United States of America’s greatest president owes his prominence not only for abolishing slavery and leading his country through a tragic civil war but for not completing his political agenda because John Wilkes Booth killed him in 1865, less than half a year into his second term in office.Felix-Roland Moumie: The world gets an introduction to French neo-colonialism when the French Secret Service (SDECE) uses one of its top agents to end the